County Sales
Stores / Businesses
County Sales was a mail-order and retail outlet for bluegrass, old-time, and classic country recordings. It was founded in 1965 by Dave Freeman in New York as an offshoot of his County Records label. For decades it carried one of the largest catalogs of traditional music available anywhere. For fans with no local source, its mailed record boxes were a lifeline, and Freeman made a point of selling other labels' records alongside his own. Freeman moved the business to Floyd, Virginia, in the mid-1970s and ran it until he retired in 2017. In 2018 Dylan and Heather Locke of the Floyd Country Store revived it, adding a retail storefront under the ownership of the Handmade Music School. The school's board closed County Sales for good on April 30, 2024.
In the newsletter
- No. 1 September 1994